September 2012

“What are you going to do today?” I asked Nick this morning at breakfast. It’s our last day in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey, and we’ve already done most of the touristy stuff. “I think I’m going to hike up to the Open Air Museum,” Nick said. “What are you going to do today?” […]

While my cousin Nick and I are touring Turkey, there’s sad news from the family back home. My aunt Virginia has died. This wasn’t unexpected — Virginia was fading for a long time — but it hurts nonetheless. Virginia was the last of my father’s family still alive. More than that, she was a great […]

Nick and I have been in Cappadocia for 48 hours. It’s awesome. Cappadocia is a region in central Turkey, high on a 1000-meter plateau (much like the great African plateau). It’s a place filled with strange geologic formations, including the famous fairy chimneys (or hoodoos). Many of the canyons and hillsides contain hundreds-of-year-old churches (or […]

For me, this trip to Turkey is different from past trips in many ways. The biggest difference is that I can’t communicate. On every past visit to a foreign country, I’ve been able to get by with a bit of the native language (and lots of English). Yes, there’s some English here, especially in tourist […]

Today, Nick and I paid to tour the ruins of Ephesus, which lie just a few kilometers outside of Selçuk. (And which are, quite frankly, the only reason people come to Selçuk.) For the most part, I found the trip tedious. But I had a good day. Ephesus was a major city in the ancient […]

“What do you want to do today?” Nick asked me this morning. We were feasting on a typical hotel breakfast in Turkey: bread and jam, watermelon, olives, a bit of goat cheese, cucumbers, and two slices of mystery meat. And tea. There’s always tea. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m beat. I could use a […]

Nick and I have been in Istanbul for five full days now, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. Without a tour group and with no real agenda, we’ve explored the city slowly. In fact, there are still lots of things we haven’t done. Whenever we part ways — which we do at times during the […]

Tonight, I got the best shave and haircut of my life. One of the things I like to do when I travel is to get my hair cut in other countries. I’ve also become accustomed to getting a shave. (A professional shave can be expensive in the U.S., but it’s surprisingly cheap elsewhere in the […]

I’m in the air, somewhere over Michigan, on my way from Denver to New York City (and then on to Istanbul). I spent the past four days in Colorado at FinCon 2012, the second annual Financial Blogger Conference. In the past, I would have written a conference summary that highlighted all of the key insights […]

Remember how I said that domain squatters want $18,000 for morethanmoney.com. They’ve changed their mind. They want more! May I have two, please? In theory, I’m somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Istanbul. Updates from Turkey soon!